


Lessons From an Abductor

by jolymusichetta



Category: Finding Carter
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kidnapping, Recreational Drug Use, Substance Abuse, Underage Drinking, Underage Substance Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1941051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolymusichetta/pseuds/jolymusichetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carter Stevens, or Wilson, she supposed, was a severely misunderstood teenager, way outside the realm of other misunderstood teenagers. She had a mom, a dad, a twin sister and a little brother, who adored her, by the way. </p><p>It may have something to do with the fact that she had been kidnapped at the tender age of three from the front yard of her house. Or … Lyndon Wilson had been kidnapped. Because the Wilsons did lose a daughter, Carter just wasn’t sure she was the daughter they lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons From an Abductor

Carter Stevens, or Wilson, she supposed, was a severely misunderstood teenager, way outside the realm of other misunderstood teenagers. She had a mom, a dad, a twin sister and a little brother, who adored her, by the way. She had chalkboard paint on the wall behind her bed, which was great for when the urge to write or draw or annoy everyone in her family with the sound of nails on a chalkboard sound and she had a bunch of clothes that she didn’t pick out and she had great friends who were there for her no matter what. So not many people, who didn’t know her, could understand why she felt misunderstood.

It may have something to do with the fact that she had been kidnapped at the tender age of three from the front yard of her house. Or … Lyndon Wilson had been kidnapped. Because the Wilsons did lose a daughter, Carter just wasn’t sure she was the daughter they lost.

Of course, the police were sure. They had fingerprints and dental records and photos of her ears, where were apparently as unique as dental records (who knew) and it confirmed that Carter Stevens, sixteen years old, five feet thee inches tall, was most definitely the long lost daughter of Elizabeth and David Wilson.

Her mother was not her mother.

Her name was not her name.

And she was stuck in this strange house, feeling like an elephant being herded into the penguin exhibit and everyone knew and god, she wished she had never gone to that party. If she hadn’t, she’d be lying down with her mom right now, her real mom, named Lori Stevens, watching some stupid rerun of whatever was on Showtime and eating frozen yogurt with gummy bears and she wouldn’t have to deal with this stupid feeling, the feeling that she was on display. _The girl who was abducted._ She felt like some kind of circus freak.

They didn’t know shit. Her mom didn’t abduct her. Abductors are cruel and mean and the victims plead for help all their lives, if they even last for that long. Carter wasn’t kidnapped. Her mom loved her. She cared about her, raised her.  
She told her she loved her every single day.

Elizabeth hadn’t said it once. Not to any of her kids.

Not even to her husband.

And she was trying to hunt down the only person Carter felt truly understood her. And that was simply unforgivable.

In Carter’s eyes, she was the abductor.

* * *

 

So that’s how Carter ended up, kneeling on her bed with a bit of chalk in hand. On the ground was the elephant stuffed animal that made a weak trumpeting sound when squeezed Elizabeth had given her, writing poetry on different branches of a tree in place of the leaves. Next to her sat Grant, standing up on the bed and drawing as best he could. It was nothing in particular, nothing special and he knew it but when he asked Carter if she liked it, she still said,

“It’s awesome, Armadillo.” She took a picture of it on her phone, making sure to save it in case any bit of it got erased.

It had been a week and a half since Carter got back from the hospital after going too hard at a party and having a seizure. As well as being in a mini-coma. And while Taylor sure as shit was not pleased with her, probably still upset about her kissing Gabe at the party when she was high on molly, Grant was her shadow, the cool older sister he never had.

Because Taylor … not as cool of a person as Carter was; it wasn’t a secret and no one tried to dance around the topic. It was honestly starting to get on Taylor’s nerves again.  
After he finished up and wiped his chalky hands on his jeans, Grant leaned back, plopping down on the bed with an audible grunt, he looked up at Carter, twisting herself at odd angles to get the words correct and blowing her hair out of her face every few seconds. “Carter?”

“What’s up, Armadillo?” she asked, not turning to look at her brother, the only member of her biological family she had truly embraced as her own.

“If you find her … your mom … are you going to leave?” he asked. They may have gone over this already but they had just found Carter and Grant looked up to her so much and … he didn’t want to lose the coolest person he had ever known.

Carter bit her lip, shrugging after a moment’s hesitation. “I dunno,” she said, lying only a little. She would go back to Lori in a heartbeat, anything to get away from these people who called themselves her family. “Maybe.”

Grant sighed. He was twelve, not stupid. “Carter …”

She dropped the chalk on her nightstand, turning around and falling onto her knees in front of her brother. “If I do end up going … I’ll visit. I promise,” she said. And by visit, she meant drive by the school before the day had even begun and pull Grant into the car to take him out for froyo and drop him off back at school, just in time to catch the bus.  
She’d be like the cool aunt he’d never had.

Except, y’know, his sister.

Any other day, Carter would have worried about them being overheard but Taylor was off doing god knows what and David was out with Toby and Elizabeth was at work and after the incidents with the stolen car and the molly and the middle finger foam finger, it had taken a lot of convincing to get them to feel okay leaving Carter alone.

It just so happened that Carter took after her mom, her _real_ mom, in more ways that anyone would admit. Like the fact that she could manipulate a person so well that by the time they realized she had scammed them, she’d be long gone, more often than not with a bag of their prime weed in her back pocket and a fake phone number in her phone.

While Lori never fully supported those scams, she was a _mom_ , she taught Carter two things:

  * Lesson One: If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
  * Lesson Two: You’re only in trouble if you get caught.



And hell, did Carter take those lessons to heart.


End file.
